Technological shifts and the shortsightedness of B1G expansion

Ok but somebody's going to have to pay. At this point, I just know it will end up being us. Most of you (I'm 80) don't remember the first days of cable TV. When had anyone ever had to PAY for TV? It came free to your aerial (SP?) on your roof! Seemed ridiculous! But eventually, I visited friends who had been dumb enough to waste their money on this stuff, and realized I was missing a lot of what I wanted to see. So I bit the bullet,& bought cable. My current problem is that my cable company doesn't have some of the netwooks/programs I want. I'm willing to pay more for them, but they tell me lot's dont. Any suggestions?
 
Cable companies are a lot less than 20 years away from being obsolete. 4G is amazing but with technology like Google Fiber (700mbps not a typo) on the horizon and algebra increasing wireless internet speeds by 1000% (LINK) The internet will take over all media and you will not need a cellular data plan to do it. I think that Wireless internet for rural (FCC) and Google Fiber will make it so depending on the current way of how we get our programming will have negative consequences sooner than you think.

I also do not have cable and have watched every Football and Basketball game this season. If cable companies wanted me to pay them they would offer me an online subscription deal with out having to subscribe to their infomercials.
 
No shiny stadium will get people to go to Northwestern games. Wrigley is a dump but it sells out.

And um, can I get a show of hands here who wears high school gear? **Keeps hand down**

Maybe you don't wear it but are you trying to tell us Ma still doesn't rock the gear from some Japanese HS?
 
Cable companies are a lot less than 20 years away from being obsolete. 4G is amazing but with technology like Google Fiber (700mbps not a typo) on the horizon and algebra increasing wireless internet speeds by 1000% (LINK) The internet will take over all media and you will not need a cellular data plan to do it. I think that Wireless internet for rural (FCC) and Google Fiber will make it so depending on the current way of how we get our programming will have negative consequences sooner than you think.

I also do not have cable and have watched every Football and Basketball game this season. If cable companies wanted me to pay them they would offer me an online subscription deal with out having to subscribe to their infomercials.

That Google Fiber sounds like it will take off, and that is where TV, Internet, and Communications is headed.
 
Yeah, no kidding. And about 2% of them are football fans. The rest are hipsters who moved to Brooklyn. You see, when you call Mediacom and say "Give me Big Ten Network" you're getting some gal from Iowa who will politely read a "I'm sorry to hear about your frustration, sir, and I will forward your concern to management" song and dance for you. And when 30 people cancel and tell Mediacom it is because of BTN they will say "Oh crap, we just lost 3% of our customers." Have you ever dealt with TWC in NYC? These are people who got rejected from Post Office and DMV jobs. Correction, Staten Islanders and NJ people who got rejected from Post Office and DMV jobs. The first time the 23 Rutgers fans who live in NYC call up and demand TWC to play ball, they will be met with a degree of hostility they have never encountered.

Rutgers

A New York Times study of the 210 television markets found New York has about 3 million college football fans, and 20.9 percent of those chose Rutgers as their favorite team. That’s almost equal to those naming Notre Dame (9.2 percent), Penn State (6.4) and UConn (5.2) combined.

Obviously saying someone is your favorite does not equate to spending additional jack to watch them on a Saturday in NYC; but I do think between the Rutgers fans willing to pay for viewership and the Midwest transplants that actually care about college football, bringing Rutgers to the fold is a good move. I've never lived in NYC, so I certainly could be wrong. Good discussion, though.
 
Rutgers

A New York Times study of the 210 television markets found New York has about 3 million college football fans, and 20.9 percent of those chose Rutgers as their favorite team. That’s almost equal to those naming Notre Dame (9.2 percent), Penn State (6.4) and UConn (5.2) combined.

Obviously saying someone is your favorite does not equate to spending additional jack to watch them on a Saturday in NYC; but I do think between the Rutgers fans willing to pay for viewership and the Midwest transplants that actually care about college football, bringing Rutgers to the fold is a good move. I've never lived in NYC, so I certainly could be wrong. Good discussion, though.

The study is wrong. Come to Chicago on a fall Saturday, you'll see the whole Big Ten (save for PSU and Nebraska) very well represented on the chests and heads of scores of people. If you go to NY, there are some rube tourists rocking the colors from wherever they live, but it ain't like the rabid fanbases in Chicago. I would bet that if you walked for one hour in NY, you would see fewer folks there rocking Rutgers gear than you would see people wearing any of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Purdue or Michigan State gear during that same hour in Chicago. Frankly, you'd probably see more Hofstra gear (and they don't even have a football team anymore) than Rutgers gear in NY.

Crappy football schools tend to overestimate their importance in major cities. Case in point: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...311179985/northwestern-sports-root-for-us-too

Northwestern does not have anywhere near a million "fans." Iowa probably has a million fans in the aggregate all over the country and Iowa draws 70k for home games, with a significant number of those driving at least 1.5 hours to get there and who pay ridiculous amounts for tickets.

Furthermore, you can bet your bottom dollar that if Syracuse had a remotely decent team, that "20.9%" number would drop to 2% or so because NYers are simpletons who are fair weather fans other than for entrenched pro teams. Ultimately, it is rabid fanbases of a few dozen teams that are driving revenues and unfortunately, MD and Rutgers are not in that few dozen club.
 
Rutgers

A New York Times study of the 210 television markets found New York has about 3 million college football fans, and 20.9 percent of those chose Rutgers as their favorite team. That’s almost equal to those naming Notre Dame (9.2 percent), Penn State (6.4) and UConn (5.2) combined.

Obviously saying someone is your favorite does not equate to spending additional jack to watch them on a Saturday in NYC; but I do think between the Rutgers fans willing to pay for viewership and the Midwest transplants that actually care about college football, bringing Rutgers to the fold is a good move. I've never lived in NYC, so I certainly could be wrong. Good discussion, though.

That article did not show the rest of the chart of the NYC market, Michigan has 5% and Ohio State has 2.2%.

fivethirtyeight-0919-geocolfootball-NYCTV-blog480.png


So Rutgers alone probably would not deliver the NYC market but the combination of Rutgers, Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State gives the Big Ten 1/3rd (over 1 million viewers) that would potentially want BTN. The challenge for the BTN is that it only represents 5% of the total market since (going back to ok4p point) only a small percentage of the total market cares about college football. But 5% of 20 million is still a pretty big number, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Here is a good article on the subject: The Geography of College Football Fans (and Realignment Chaos) - NYTimes.com

From that article it is easy to see why Georgia Tech would be considered if the B1G ever looks to expand again. Contrary to the belief NFL cities do not care about college football Atlanta has 41% of the population that follow college football.
 
That article did not show the rest of the chart of the NYC market, Michigan has 5% and Ohio State has 2.2%.

fivethirtyeight-0919-geocolfootball-NYCTV-blog480.png


So Rutgers alone probably would not deliver the NYC market but the combination of Rutgers, Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State gives the Big Ten 1/3rd (over 1 million viewers) that would potentially want BTN. The challenge for the BTN is that it only represents 5% of the total market since (going back to ok4p point) only a small percentage of the total market cares about college football. But 5% of 20 million is still a pretty big number, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Here is a good article on the subject: The Geography of College Football Fans (and Realignment Chaos) - NYTimes.com

From that article it is easy to see why Georgia Tech would be considered if the B1G ever looks to expand again. Contrary to the belief NFL cities do not care about college football Atlanta has 41% of the population that follow college football.

NY already has BTN, though. I watched an Iowa BB game at my bro's house last season on BTN. And they are likely paying a nickel or dime per subscriber bince they are out of market. New Jersey is not NY. When Delany tries to tell them that the nickel or dime per subscriber just went to $1.10 and that it must be paid by every subscriber because Rutgers joined the conference he is absolutely going to get laughed out of the room. Not sure about DC, but I bet their cable company will do the same. I thought they tiered pricing based on location in a state with a B10 team, so I am not sure if they are going to change that for NY, but if the conference thinks it can shake down the shake down artists in NY, it will have another thing coming. And in the long term, they are staking this on a dinosaur industry. As someone noted above, my 20 year timeline for cable may be optimistic.
 
Yes, most households already have BTN but are not paying Tier 1 prices unless there it is within the BTN foot print. I think right now they are paying ~35 cents, that would go up to ~$1.10. If my numbers are correct that is an extra 15 million per month in revenue for BTN.
 
While I think the B1G have a good commish in Delaney, some of his decisions are head scratchers i.e: the naming of the divisions Legends & Leaders. One would think that he (and his advisers) would have thought this thing through long term.

His main goal was to get Notre Dame but that looks like it is not going happen in the near term.
 
"Legends & Leaders" was Kurt's idea. You see, not only does Kurt have GrrBrr in his pocket, but also Delaney.
Kurt is one powerful mofo.
 
My cousin is an RA at a dorm in Cedar Falls. Only 1/3rd of rooms have a tv and cable. Most watch everything streamed. More guys have cable due to sports viewing, but its still less than 75%.
 
Interesting thoughts.

What about this; the majority of cable subs migrate to a satellite platform, like DirecTV...and those Sat companies take advantage of the advances in wireless internet speeds (4G speeds on cell phones are already faster than half of the internet connections in US)...doesn't the source of money just shift to a different provider?
mean while the rest of the world is laughing at what we have in the US for "internet speed" and paying considerably less.
 
mean while the rest of the world is laughing at what we have in the US for "internet speed" and paying considerably less.

This will change. The government is handing out grants to local ISPs to increase connectivity throughout the US. I know severalcompanies are taking advantage of this in eastern Iowa. So more and different providers will emerge and Google will undercut everyone just because they can.
 

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